The introduction of Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Chief Architect for the Monuments of France, and the Intervention

Many years later Judy had the great honor to be introduced to Pierre- Antoine Gatier, Chief Architect for the Monuments of France, who had been the architect in charge of the restoration of such icons as Le Corbusier’s Maisons La Roche and Jeanneret, and Eileen Gray’s seaside villa, E-1027, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Upon meeting, Gatier realized that DiMaio’s in-depth knowledge and incisive critiques of Italian Renaissance architecture and painting, as well as Modern Architecture and art in France, were unsurpassed and unparalleled. DiMaio credits this with a hyper-visual memory and sensibility, learned from the master Rowe and his “expert eye.” DiMaio invited architect Gatier to be a visiting professor at the NYIT School of Architecture and Design, and it was during his New York sojourn that they continued to speak about architecture and in the case of Le Corbusier and his Oeuvre Complète.

It was in the Fall of 2014 that DiMaio received a message from Gatier, informing her that he had been retained by the homeowners of the Villa Stein-de Monzie to restore the Villa’s exterior, desperately in need of restoration, and invited her and her team of students at NYIT to become involved as the conceptual advisor on the project. Their role was to look for and to consider the presence of those architectural moments that were compromised, or lost over time, as a result of interventions of the various previous owners. Dean DiMaio saw this extraordinary invitation as an opportunity to involve the student body and offered a seminar for both the spring and fall of 2016 entitled, Close Reads; Inspecting the Evidence, Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein-de Monzie.